Chapter 03 / Fees
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The Stripe fee on a $100 domestic card payment is $3.20, using Stripe's standard US rate of 2.9% + 30¢. That rises to $4.70 for a card issued outside the US and adds 70¢ more with Stripe Billing. Avendo takes a different approach to the same cost: processors compete for each transaction, and Avendo bills merchants nothing.
$3.20. Stripe charges 2.9% of $100 ($2.90) plus a fixed 30¢ on each successful domestic card payment in the US. An internationally issued card adds 1.5% ($1.50), for $4.70. Stripe Billing on the pay-as-you-go plan adds 0.7% of billing volume, another 70¢ on $100.
Enter a payment amount to estimate the Stripe fee at published US rates. Add your monthly payment count to see the monthly total.
Enter an amount and press calculate to see the estimated Stripe fee.
Assumptions
Stripe's published US rates: 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card payment, plus 1.5% for cards issued outside the US, plus 0.7% of billing volume for Stripe Billing on pay-as-you-go. Rounded to the cent. This is an estimate, not a quote; confirm current pricing with Stripe.
| Option | Domestic card | International card | Domestic + Billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | $1.03 | $1.40 | $1.20 |
| $59.99 | $2.04 | $2.94 | $2.46 |
| $100 | $3.20 | $4.70 | $3.90 |
| $250 | $7.55 | $11.30 | $9.30 |
Calculated from Stripe's published US pricing, rounded to the cent. The $59.99 figures match those in "Stripe Alternatives for Subscription Apps: Switch or Add?".
Credit card processing fees are high because three layers stack on each payment. Card networks such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover set interchange and assessment fees for all merchants. Your processor then adds its markup. Finally, add-ons like international card surcharges, billing tools and chargeback fees push the total higher.
The layer you can influence is the processor markup. With one processor, that markup is fixed until you renegotiate or move. Avendo was created by former business owners who found processing rates confusing, and it keeps the markup under competition by routing each payment to the best available processor rate.
Highnote recommends running the all-in effective rate on your last 90 days of actual volume. Avendo also offers a free processing fee calculator that needs two numbers from one monthly statement.
Avendo never sends merchants an invoice, bill or direct charge. There are no Avendo monthly charges or platform fees. Avendo earns a services fee of 10¢ per transaction, and that fee is billed to the payment processor, not to you.
You still pay your processor's rate, which includes network interchange and assessments. The difference is that the processor handling each payment was chosen because it offered the best available rate for that transaction. Details are on Avendo's pricing page.
A rate difference that looks small per payment becomes a real line item over a year. On $1,000,000 of annual card volume, every 0.25% is $2,500 a year, and every 1.00% is $10,000. Because processing fees come out of profit rather than revenue, that money flows straight to the bottom line.
MyPayAdvisor's 2026 ranking notes some processors lower their margin automatically at $50K, $100K, $500K and $1M a month. Avendo goes further by re-running the competition on every transaction, whatever your volume.
Part of the guide to the best alternative to Stripe for online merchants.
At Stripe's standard US rate of 2.9% + 30¢, a $100 domestic card payment costs $3.20 in fees. If the card was issued outside the US, the extra 1.5% adds $1.50, for $4.70 in total. Using Stripe Billing on the pay-as-you-go plan adds 0.7% of billing volume, or another 70¢. These figures follow Stripe's published US pricing.
Fees stack in layers. Card networks such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover set interchange and assessment fees, and your processor adds its own markup on top. Add-ons like international card surcharges or billing tools raise the total further. With one processor, that markup usually stays fixed until you renegotiate, which is why Avendo keeps processors competing on every transaction.
Most online small businesses pay a percentage plus a fixed fee per transaction; Stripe's published US rate, for example, is 2.9% + 30¢. Your real cost is the effective rate: total fees divided by card sales. We recommend calculating it on your last 90 days of actual processing volume, including every add-on fee, before you compare any alternative.
No single gateway has the lowest fees on every transaction, because cost varies with card type, issuer country and ticket size. That is the gap Avendo targets: instead of betting on one provider's price list, it routes each transaction to whichever connected processor offers the best available rate at that moment. For in-person sales, our audit found a lowest flat rate of 2.29% + 9¢.
No processor sets interchange. Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover do, and those rates apply to all merchants. What differs between processors is the markup and fees they add on top. That is the part competition can affect, which is why Avendo routes each transaction to the processor offering the best available rate rather than trying to change interchange itself.
Stripe Billing adds 0.7% of billing volume on the pay-as-you-go plan, on top of standard card fees. Our analysis worked out about $2.04 in card fees per payment on a $59.99 annual plan, or $2.46 with Billing. Include add-ons like this when you calculate an effective rate.
Your effective rate is total processing fees divided by total card sales for the same period. If you paid $310 in fees on $10,000 of sales, your effective rate is 3.1%. It captures every add-on fee that a headline rate hides, so it is the fairest number for comparing Stripe with any other processor or with a routing service like Avendo.
No. Avendo never sends merchants an invoice, bill or direct charge. It earns a services fee of 10¢ per transaction that is billed to the payment processor. Merchants still pay the processor's rate, which includes interchange and assessments set by Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover, but Avendo's routing is built to find the best available processor rate on each transaction.
Share your monthly card volume and average ticket with Avendo. Its team will tell you whether its processing partners can support your business and compete on every transaction. There is no merchant fee from Avendo and no obligation to switch.
